


Charcoal Drawings and Clean, White Bones

by norgbelulah



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Emotional Manipulation, Loss of Identity, M/M, Mind Games, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:07:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5029558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>His memories are lost. But often, most often when he wakes from his dreams, he feels more as though they were taken from him. Replaced by a long scar across his abdomen.</i>
</p>
<p>Will wakes in the hospital with no memories of his life before his injury. Yet his dreams still contain disturbing images that he feels are his only link to a past he can't remember, but doesn't want to let go. They lead him on a journey his old friends, now strangers, say will end in destruction.</p>
<p>Will finds he doesn't really care.</p>
<p>Alternatively titled, "Grahamnesia."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Will has dreams.

The doctors tell him he had dreams before his injury. They say it's there in his file. He had encephalitis. He reported hallucinations.

He wonders now if they're the same as they were.

In the hospital, he has dreams and he wonders if they are memories. He's lost his. The memories.

That's what the doctors say. His memories are lost. But often, most often when he wakes from his dreams, he feels more as though they were taken from him. Replaced by a long scar across his abdomen.

He thinks of it as though they fell out of his head as he was holding in his own entrails. Which he knows he has done. The doctors told him.

He knows, too, the name of the man who gutted him.

He doesn't understand how anything between them could have resulted in such an action. The doctors have decided not to tell him that, for now. They hope he will come to remember on his own.

He wonders if his dreams might tell him. He wonders if he should try not to care.

The man is gone now, the doctors say. Will is safe from him in the hospital.

But Will's dreams do not feel safe.

He dreams of pages and pages of charcoal drawings. European city streets and anatomical diagrams. Rainy alleyways and clean, white bones. Smiling skulls. Sunken, black eyes. He dreams the papers in flame. He dreams he feels warm. He feels purpose.

There is someone standing next to him.

He dreams of a feathered stag, black and beautiful, limping through the hospital and watching Will as if it knows him. As if it knows everything Will can't remember, and more.

He dreams the stag moans and he wakes to the sound of his own cries. His shoulders shake and he is weeping. His stomach aches and the stitches burn, healing his memories out, he thinks. Keeping him from himself, from his purpose, from--

The machine he is hooked up to beeps erratically as his heart rate spikes. Panic engulfs him. He's torn the bandage open and pulled out the first stitch before they sedate him.

The stag bellows and melts into a river which fades into a dark fog. Will can't escape.

When he wakes, he is restrained. There is a woman in a wheelchair next to his bed. She is brunette and pretty, though pale, as though she's been ill.

She smiles at him so he smiles back. When he asks if she's his shrink--he was going to get one eventually--she smiles again but her eyes are sad.

"No, Will." She takes his hand. The restraint stops him from pulling away. "I'm your friend."

He looks at her and remembers nothing. Her eyes assess him, he knows that's what she's doing. She's worried, but she's watching. She's looking for something.

"You don't have to lie. I know I've been in therapy before."

A bitter noise escapes her throat. "You're not going to make this easy on anyone, are you?" She asks. He can tell she didn't mean to say it. She sighs.

"Should I?" he asks. He feels no connection to her. He realizes she thinks he might have. Irrationally, she knows, but she really thought he would.

She shakes her head. "No. No, Will. I'm being sentimental. I should have said I was your friend. I hope we can be friends again. I wanted--"

"You wanted to see if you could fix me," he says.

When she winces, he thinks he must have once been better at knowing when to keep things to himself. He decides not to apologize. It doesn't matter if he owes her anything. He can't remember it now.

She tries and fails to smile. She pats his hand and lets it go. "You're not broken, Will." She meets his eyes and he sees her pull away from him, emotionally. Whatever she'd wanted to share with him, she now knows she can't. He feels nothing. It's already lost. Stolen.

She wheels the chair back, turning to go. He suddenly understands. "You were--Dr. Bloom," he stumbles. "They said you fell from the window."

"Yes, Will," she says, but it sounds like a lie, or not the whole truth. "I've recommended a psychologist for you. Please tell her if you'd like to speak with me about the past. I'll share everything I know about you, about my friendship and work with you. About--" She hesitates.

"Hannibal Lecter," Will supplies.

"Yes," she says, her voice growing cold and her eyes distant. It's clear to him she doesn't really want to talk about it at all.

He won't ask. He wouldn't have even if she wanted him to. He doesn't want to hear about the past, he wants to remember it.

At least he thinks he does.

She steels herself. He can see it. She doesn’t want any part of him, but she’s going to help him if he lets her. Not for him. For some other reason Will can’t quite see.

It hardly matters, he thinks. He’s not going to let her.

"I'll see you soon," Alana Bloom says, and rolls away.

Will sleeps.

He dreams of a shattered teacup and ashes in the air. He breathes them in and tastes blood. An exacting hand severs the neck of a young girl with trusting eyes. Will feels the sadness and horror of the moment but it soon slips away as he cups the slick remains of himself--not just viscera, but smiles and laughter, tears, words, actions, sweat, screams and silences. Cold eyes and bloodstains. Desperation.

And the stag is in his hospital room, pacing at the window, standing at the foot of his bed, then the side, when it lays its head down beside him.

Will strokes its muzzle. In his dream he says, "I forgive you."

 

He sees Alana again before he leaves the hospital. She insists he call her by her first name. They speak about his dogs.

Apparently he had quite a few of them.

"A friend of mine took Winston," she says. "But the others went to temporary homes while we were hospitalized. Some of the fosterers want to keep them."

Will nods. "They should." He's not sure why they're talking about it. They're not really his dogs now anyway.

When he says as much, Alana tilts her head, frowning. “You’re still the same person, Will,” she says. She knows he believes the opposite. She doesn’t understand. Or she refuses to.

Will offers her a polite smile. “You should keep Winston,” he says. She wouldn’t have mentioned him specifically if he wasn’t her favorite.

She shakes her head. She looks up at him from her chair, but he can’t meet her gaze almost at all. “I can’t. I find myself changed from my injury. I no longer believe I can be a good caregiver.” She hesitates and adds, “Also, I don’t think he likes me anymore.”

He finally makes himself look directly at her. She doesn’t seem embarrassed by the admission. In fact, she seems relieved to be able to meet his eyes cooly. Will feels a weight lift from his shoulders.

“You’re only doing this, helping me, out of a sense of obligation to yourself,” he points out. “This isn’t about our friendship anymore, is it?” 

“Transformation,” she replies, “a new thing we have in common.” Though the words seem to further distance them from each other. Will doesn’t mind. He wants to feel distant.

He agrees to take his dog home.

 

“And how is it? Being back home?” Dr. Fischer asks on their second appointment. Will’s just finished telling her about seeing Alana, who is her friend from medical school, and getting Winston back.

“Fine,” he lies.

Really, the house feels stagnant, lifeless, like the tomb of a stranger. He hates being there and spends most of his time outside.

He doesn’t fish.

He knows he used to. That’s obvious enough from all the tackle and the waders inside the back door. He can close his eyes and feel the rod in his hands, know just how to twist his wrist to cast the fly, to reel the line. But he doesn’t want it. It feels like the ritual of another man, like stepping into the too large shoes of someone’s father.

Instead, Will hikes with Winston, who really is a good dog. He occasionally bird watches. He thinks about buying a rifle. He can’t feel one in his hands, but he somehow wants to. He thinks about the stag in his dreams. He thinks about killing it. He thinks about it tearing his scar open--or he dreams about that, maybe.

He doesn’t tell Dr. Fischer.

During their fourth appointment, she calls him out on it. “Will, you can’t make any progress without engaging in this process.”

“What is progress?” he asks. He feels detached as the words leave his mouth, dissociated. He almost doesn’t recognize the term and really can’t think of what she means. Where does he go from nowhere? Where is he but in Limbo? He can’t see any way out.

“Hannibal Lecter isn’t coming back to kill you, Will,” Dr. Fischer continues, not understanding his question, overreaching and missing the mark. Will hadn’t been thinking about Hannibal Lecter at all.

Now he is.

“No,” Will replies, blinking rapidly. “No, he isn’t.” Will knew that.

“It’s safe to move on with your life. With or without your memories. Don’t you want to reconnect with society? Even continue with your work?”

But Will isn’t listening. The doctors all told him he was safe. But he understands now, he never wanted to be. He doesn’t want to be safe from Hannibal Lecter.

Will was waiting for him.

He thinks, maybe Hannibal Lecter is waiting for Will.

The doctor is calling his name.

He turns to her and she shrinks from him, just slightly. He’s unnerved her. It’s an interesting feeling, one he smiles at. Her eyes widen as he says, “You’re thinking I’m above your pay grade. You labored under that suspicion until now. Now I’ve proven it and you want me gone. You were always jealous of Dr. Bloom’s intellect. You only took me on to make yourself feel like her equal, but now you know you’re not. So you really want me gone.”

She takes in an audible breath and there’s a long pause before she gathers herself, flipping rapidly through the notebook on her lap. “Mr. Graham, I’d like you to voluntarily admit yourself to--”

He grins at her and she stops speaking. “No, I don’t think so,” he says. “I’ll be leaving now.”

 

“Jerrika didn’t have the proper grasp of your-- your disorder, Will.”

Will doesn’t remember giving Alana Bloom his number.

“In retrospect, she wasn’t a good choice. But I don’t believe she’s wrong in her concern for your mental state right now, either. If you would consent to a psych eval at--”

“No,” Will tells her. “I’m resigning from the Bureau anyway.” Therapy had been encouraged, because of his memories, but no one was forcing him to go. It was only a requirement if he wanted to go back to work. Which he doesn’t.

He doesn’t understand why he’d ever been doing that work at all. He knows how his mind works, what he sees that others can’t. He doesn’t think that how he’s living right now is particularly healthy, but he knows walking through crime scenes everyday would be like a death sentence. And Will doesn’t want to die.

Not like that. Not in bits and pieces.

“That’s probably for the best. But you can’t think--”

“I’m leaving the country, Alana.” He’s just finished buying his plane ticket.

“Will, I’m not sure now is the time for you to be making decisions like this.”

“It’s not permanent,” he says, unsure as to why he’s bothering to reassure her. “I’m just travelling. I need a change.”

“Where are you going?” She sounds suddenly apprehensive.

“Why do you want to know?” He counters. “You have just as little invested in our relationship now as I do.”

She doesn’t answer right away and suddenly he understands. This isn’t about him. It’s about Hannibal Lecter.

He doesn’t mind rubbing it in then. “Europe. Italy to start.”

There’s a long pause, but the response he desires doesn’t come. “What about Winston?”

“Extended boarding. I’ve got some money saved, and I got a deal on it.”

“Will,” she says. “Why Italy?”

Will sighs. She wants to make him say it and he doesn’t feel particularly like obliging. “I don’t owe you an explanation,” he tells her.

“Maybe,” she says with another of her bitter laughs. “But there’s someone else who definitely deserves one.”

 

Jack Crawford visits Will in Wolf Trap. His flight is tomorrow.

Jack was in a neck brace and immobile for weeks, according to Alana’s sporadic updates. But he seems well now, if a bit stiff. 

When he finds Will clearing some overgrown brush from the backyard, Jack looks at him for a long time.

“You really don’t remember anything,” he says. As though everyone who told him might have been lying.

Will raises his eyebrows. He tosses a thorny branch into the pile he’d been gathering to burn. He doesn’t feel like beating around the bush . “Dr. Bloom thinks I owe you an explanation.”

He shrugs, a gesture which clearly pains him. “She probably just said that because she knows I wanted to talk to you.”

Will uncrosses his arms to wave him on.

“I know you don’t remember what we were doing together, to catch Lecter. But you’ll understand my frustration not being able to ask just what you were thinking that night when you--” He breaks off suddenly, grimacing, as if in pain, grappling with himself over something Will can’t get a read on.

Maybe he might have if he remembered that night. He wonders what this conversation would be like if he could.

Jack shakes his head and a moment later continues, “I understand your reasons for wanting to stay far away from all of this, now that you’ve got yourself a blank slate. Hell, I know I’d quit if I--” He stops and peers at Will.

Will looks back at him steadily.

“Your poker face is better than ever, Graham,” Jack says.

“You think I’m lying,” Will says as he realizes.

“I’m entertaining the possibility. Your undercover work with Lecter was just as convincing.”

“Was it?” Will doesn’t really want to know. He thinks he should just tell the man to leave. But the look on Jack’s face is too compelling.

“I don’t know anymore,” Jack says.

“Well, neither do I,” Will returns peevishly. “Ask me your question, Jack. See if it looks like I know the answer when I tell you I don’t.”

“You warned him,” Jack accuses. “We had him and you warned him. Why?”

Will doesn’t waver. “I don’t remember. I don’t know.”

No one has told him yet about this. Of course, no one except he and Jack know. It solidifies things for him. It makes his decision feel right.

He looks at Jack and knows it’s his neck that hurts him, all the time. From the wound Lecter gave him. The doctors told Will a girl died that night, too. He keeps forgetting. Those things happened to other people, to another man.

“Why Italy, Will?” Jack finally asks.

“I have dreams about it,” he says. “That’s all I have left.”

Will dreams the dark stag in cathedrals, groaning, all alone. He dreams it walking desolate down narrow stone streets born of lines of charcoal, transformed to coral from fire and ash. He dreams a low voice says, Come with me, Will.

And when Will wakes, he feels something. Something other than lost.

Jack says, a hard line in his eye, “Whatever he did to you, Will. It’s still happening. It’s not gone.”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Will says.

“Will,” Jack looks panicked now. “Don’t go there.”

Will turns and walks back into his house. He doesn’t check until hours later to see that Jack has left.


	2. Chapter 2

Will dreams in Florence.

He dreams of an office painted in blood reds and forest greens, with high ceilings and beautiful furniture, modern and classic, like the lines of a tailored suit.

He dreams a man with no face sits across from him and speaks words Will can’t quite hear. His voice is a low hum, soothing yet somehow dissonant.

He dreams the stag lays down in the corner, head raised, watchful. He dreams it huffs a breath, as though waiting for something, waiting for Will. _I’m here_ , Will says.

Will wakes and doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He wanders the streets of the medieval city. It rains and he walks through it. It doesn’t feel like a baptism. He doesn’t feel clean. He feels hollow. His scar aches. He thumbs it sometimes through his clothes, like he can feel the empty space.

He hears about a murder in Palermo shortly after his arrival. He doesn’t look at the photos. He’s not quite sure why. He thinks, rationalizes, that he just doesn’t want to see any more death. He’s left that behind, for now. He won’t fill his head with it again. Not like before.

He sees a sign outside a museum perhaps a week later for a free lecture on Dante's _Inferno_. Will smiles to himself. Memories are funny things. He knows Dante, knows of the work at least, but he's not sure if he's ever read it. He thinks it might be a fun bit of irony to hear someone talk about a devil other than Hannibal Lecter.

He checks his watch. It's an hour and a half until the lecture. He spies a cafe across the square and decides to get a coffee to kill some time.

Some minutes later, he sees a man crossing the square.

The man is wearing a sleek, summer suit and he's tall, broad shouldered, lighter than the average Italian. He carries a briefcase. Will has seen his face before. In pictures. In the police report.

Will drops his coffee cup. It shatters on the stone at his feet.

Hannibal Lecter stops walking.

Then he starts again. He turns, almost casually, and walks right over to Will.

Will stands, terrified in some capacity, though it’s hard to measure in the moment. He kicks the broken shards of the coffee cup away and takes one step forward before Hannibal Lecter stops, a foot away from him.

This killer, this monster, this demon looks at the broken cup on the ground and then back up at Will.

“Did you do that on purpose?” he asks. His voice is husky and melodic, syllables artfully garbled by his fascinating accent.

Will doesn’t know what he means and can’t answer.

“Oh,” Will says instead. “Oh.” Hannibal Lecter’s presence is almost suffocating. It is so much more, so much _bigger_ than he thought. Will looks up into his eyes, penetrating and cold, and he can’t stop saying it. “Oh.”

This is a feeling he has felt before. Only now, he doesn’t remember how to battle against it.

It is clear Hannibal sees that something is different. He is hesitating. This is not how he expected to see Will again, how he calculated Will would react.

“You did not come to see my valentine,” Hannibal tells him. “I waited for you.”

Will frowns. “In Palermo?”

Hannibal tilts his head. “You are changed,” he says. It seems he doesn’t like that he can’t tell how.

“Full retrograde amnesia is rare in trauma victims,” Will replies, forcing a shrug. “But not unheard of.”

Hannibal makes a noise, soft and low, in understanding.

“Are you disappointed?” Will asks. His heartbeat is fast, erratic. He should be running now. He’s not sure if it’s his body or his mind that is fighting the instinct. He knows it’s because of this… _presence_.

Hannibal makes a face like he might want to laugh, but resists the urge. “It is,” he pauses. “Quite elegant.”

Will smiles bitterly.

“Why are you here, Mr. Graham?” Hannibal says.

Will is pleased Hannibal understands how things have changed. Perhaps they were friends once, perhaps they were enemies months ago in Hannibal’s kitchen, but right now, they are strangers.

“Everyone thought you would come to find me,” Will replies. “When you didn’t, I had nothing else to do.”

Hannibal looks at him as though he knows Will is speaking half-truths. “Do you want me to kill you?”

“I want you to do what you want with me. I get the feeling,” Will says, “that it went badly before. Not how you would have liked. And it makes sense that it was my fault. I won’t get in your way this time. At least for now.”

“You would come with me?” He seems surprised.

Will nods.

“And what about all the people I killed?”

Will notices he doesn’t mention the girl’s name, Abigail.

Will shrugs again. “They’re no one I know.”

Hannibal looks at him for a long time then he says, “May I touch you?”

Will blinks, slightly perturbed, but nods his assent.

Hannibal’s hand is warm, so much warmer than his eyes or his smile. He touches Will’s face with an open palm. Will reaches automatically for his arm. His scar burns.

“Are you in pain?” Hannibal asks.

“No,” Will answers.

“Tell me the very last thing you want me to know.”

Will looks up at him and frowns. “Is that a condition?”

“There is no deal to which a condition could be amended, Mr. Graham. Tell me or I will kill you.”

“Here?” They are still standing in the square. Not an ideal place for murder.

“Yes, you may tell me here.”

Will huffs and _leans in_ to Hannibal’s embrace. They must look like lovers. Long lost. Meeting by chance. Will doesn’t understand his own thoughts.

He says, “I dream about a stag. This huge animal. Black and feathered like a crow. I dream it all the time. But I don’t know if it’s supposed to be me or you.”

Hannibal’s expression turns subtly quizzical. “Supposed to be?”

“What it represents, I mean.”

“Must it be you or I?”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“I think,” Hannibal says as he slides his hand around the back of Will’s neck, “that you were desperate to tell me that.”

“Are you going to kill me then?”

Hannibal smiles. “I have to give the lecture,” he says. “A colleague of mine has disappeared. I must take his place this afternoon.”

Will really does laugh then. But he follows Hannibal into the Palazzo.

 

Will is transfixed by Hannibal’s lecture.

He doesn’t even understand half of it. His head is buzzing to distraction with adrenaline and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t read Dante, because none of it sounds familiar. The only thing that’s familiar is the timbre of Hannibal’s voice echoing across the auditorium. Will wants to relax into it, to close his eyes and slip under. But his body is tense. His hands shake.

In the taxi, afterwards, when Hannibal is mere inches from Will, he says, “Your body remembers me and reacts, when your mind cannot.” He carefully catalogs the state Will is in. Will can only watch him do it. “Would you like a tranquilizer?” He asks.

“No, thank you,” Will replies.

“A valium, perhaps?”

Will shakes his head. “I’d to stay in charge of all my faculties, Dr. Lecter.”

Hannibal gives him a look that might say, he’s sorry, but that won’t be possible.

Will’s hands are still shaking.

“Jack Crawford thought I might be lying. About the memories,” he says, testing.

“Jack thinks it’s possible you would lie to get back to me. And now you are here. Why would you maintain such pretence?”

“To catch you,” Will whispers, closing his eyes.

“I will admit, your final betrayal was a surprise. But I know what to look for now. And it is easy to tell you are not the same. You are transformed--”

“Erased,” Will supplies.

“Yet, still. I believe I know you better than Jack.”

Will looks at him, for the first time since they climbed into the cab. He really looks.

There is a wall behind Hannibal’s eyes. Will can see him, can see what is projected onto the wall, but he can’t see behind it. Not like he can with everyone else. Will should have been expecting that. It’s somehow both incredibly horrific and unconscionably welcome.

Hannibal says, “You are not lying. You would not be here, in this way, if you remembered. You would have gone to Palermo. Then you would have gone… elsewhere and come back to me.”

“What is this?” Will asks softly.

His scar burns again. He draws a hand across it, unbidden. Hannibal notes the gesture.

“It is what it is,” he replies. “I would not cheapen it with explanation.”

Will has more questions, but he can't imagine getting answers that are any more clear at this point. He watches Hannibal watching him. Traffic is horrible and they are moving at a crawl.

"You want to touch me again," Will says. He says it like fact, but Hannibal is so hard to read, it should be a question.

"What do _you_ want, Will?"

Will doesn't answer. He doesn't know. It feels as though it's been a long time since he's wanted anything.

"Then I will not," Hannibal tells him. "The boundaries between us have changed. They have before and will again. I am patient. And I will ask as I did earlier."

Will nods.

"Will you ask, should you gain an understanding of your desires?"

"O-of course," Will answers.

They don’t speak again until they arrive at Hannibal’s house. The place is luxurious, opulent, more palatial than Will was expecting.

Hannibal leads him up a curving staircase and opens the door to a spacious apartment with high ceilings and gilded decor. As they step inside, a woman rises from the dining table, which is in full view of the foyer. She is blonde and beautifully made-up, wearing a slim sheath dress in a deep blue color. Her face is a careful blank, until she sees Will.

“My God,” she exclaims. She turns to Hannibal, fear in her eyes. “What have you done?”

“Nothing,” Hannibal answers lightly, as if she were completely off-base to accuse him of anything nefarious. “I met Mr. Graham on my way to the lecture.”

The woman, if anything, looks even more frightened than she did before.

“I’m sorry,” Will says, slipping into the kind of social graces he thought he’d lost with his memories. He wants to put this woman at ease. He says to Hannibal, “You didn’t tell me you had a guest.”

Hannibal smiles. He’s pleased about something. He’s watching the woman for a reaction. “Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier is my traveling companion.”

“Oh, we’ve met before,” Will realizes as a terrible confusion crosses Dr. Du Maurier’s face. “My apologies, Doctor.”

When she only stares at him and doesn’t speak, he understands she’s no longer certain her senses are trustworthy. On a deeper level, he understands now what Hannibal wants from him.

Will smiles. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s not you. You see, I can’t remember anything before…” He almost says before he was attacked, then he remembers he’s standing next to his assailant. His smile twists and he says, “Before I woke up from the coma.”

She sinks down into the chair behind her, eyes wide. She bends over her knees as if she might be ill. Will tilts his head as he considers her, then realizes it’s an extraordinarily Hannibal-like gesture.

He turns his attention to Hannibal, who is now focused on him.

“You are not so closed off, Will,” he says. “You must be careful.” He says this, though they both know he wants the complete opposite. “Bedelia,” Hannibal turns to his hostage. “Will you be observing or participating?”

“What are you doing here?” Bedelia asks Will.

Will replies, “I had nothing but dreams. So I followed them. I knew he could be here and I didn’t care.” He looks at Hannibal and thinks Hannibal wants to touch him again. A gesture of power, of ownership. Will isn’t all together against the idea.

He steps further into the room. He sees the large double doors that lead into a spacious kitchen, but he doesn’t enter, glancing back at Hannibal, to acknowledge he knows the space is… not neutral territory.

Will has not looked at the files, but he has heard things. He knows what Hannibal is.

He stops on the opposite side of the table from Bedelia. He drags the tips of his fingers across the smooth finish across from where she sits. She watches the movement then raises her eyes to meet Will’s. “Have you been doing much participating?” Will asks her.

“You don’t understand what’s going to happen to you,” she tells him. Her lustrous hair swings close to the table as she looks up at him.

“I think,” he says, “it’s already done.”

She shakes her head sadly.

“Why else would I be here?” Will asks, mostly himself at this point. “So much of who I was is gone. All that remains is the part that wants this… _must_ have wanted this. I see no reason to resist.”

“Nor do I,” Hannibal says. He’s moved to a doorway across the room from the kitchen at Will’s back. He holds out his hand and Will steps away from Bedelia to take it. The gesture seems significant somehow to Hannibal, because his fingers curl tightly around Will’s.

“What is it that you think he wants, Will?” Bedelia is looking increasingly desperate.

Will isn’t entirely sure what she thinks he’s going to do to get away now, but he answers honestly, keeping his eyes on Hannibal, “To devour me.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Do you know what a mind palace is?”

“We’ve spoken about this before.”

Bedelia has retired to the bathroom. Will and Hannibal are nursing scotch in crystal tumblers. They face each other. It’s clear the scene is familiar to Hannibal. Comforting, even.

Hannibal takes a sip from his glass before replying, “You would not remember the conversation, yet it is possible you retain understanding of the concept.”

Will frowns. “I think I do.” It isn’t a particularly obscure idea. But he wonders if Hannibal had somehow elucidated it in a way that made it more clear or attractive. His feelings on the subject feel muddled. Confused.

Hannibal smiles briefly. “I wondered after we spoke of it, if you would attempt to build your own.”

Will replies, flustered, “But I wouldn’t remember if I had. How could I… find it, I guess. In all of this emptiness?”

“I could help you.” Hannibal leans forward.

“Are you so sure I have constructed such a thing?”

"If you have, then I wonder if your memories are as lost as you think they are. If you haven't, then we will build anew. I see no obstacle to either scenario, nor will I be disappointed with either outcome."

Strangely, Will feels the same. "When can we begin?"

"Right now," Hannibal replies. "Tell me about your dreams."

Will doesn’t know where the words come from. He starts with the first dream. The stag in the hospital. He goes into excruciating detail. Its width and breadth, the pitch color of its hide and plumage, its heaving pant, the forest humidity it carries about with it.

“It makes me feel infinitesimal, yet expansive, simultaneously,” he says. “It pierces me. Sometimes from without, sometimes from within.”

“Physically?” Hannibal’s voice is soft. Will’s closed his eyes. He can see the beast now, but it’s grown into a man-shaped thing with a crown of antlers, growing high, sharp, from its dark head.

"Yes," Will breathes. "Once, it speared me from my scar. From inside."

Will doesn't hear Hannibal move. He opens his eyes, startled, as he feels a cool touch at his abdomen. Hannibal's hands have slipped under his shirt. The room has grown dim in the dusk and his eyes are shadowed, dark pools, like the stag.

"Here?" His voice is like a growl. His fingers trace the seam of his own incision. Will's heart hammers in his chest, his blood pounds all through him. Hannibal must be able to feel it pulsing.

"I thought you said would ask before you touched me." Will's breath is heavy, his words uneven.

"I lied."

"No, you broke faith. You acted thoughtlessly. Spontaneously."

Hannibal tilts his head, as if to ask, _did I?_ Blunt nails prick at the scar tissue. "I could rip it open right now."

Will meets his eyes. So dark. "No, you want me whole and healthy. I bear this scar, but it wasn't for me. You can try to bring him back. If you do, then by all means tear him open again. But I haven't done anything to you."

“Haven’t you?” Hannibal’s breath is labored and suddenly Will know what he wants.

“Suck me,” he demands. Hannibal jerks, not away, but not any closer either. His mouth falls open. “Make me come,” Will says.

“And you plan to reciprocate such an act?” Hannibal’s words are even and cool and he’s taken control of his breathing. But his pupils are blown wide and he hasn’t moved his fingers from Will’s scar.

“If you want me to.”

“And if I desire something else?”

“I am in your hands,” Will says and he’s hard now. Really hard. “I’ll ask for what I want, but I think we both understand…” He doesn’t know how to say it. He only knows what he wants.

Hannibal strokes at his belly. Will thinks of Winston and whimpers. But he’s not afraid. He hasn’t thought to be. Not since he first saw Hannibal in the square.

“What do we understand, Will?”

Will breathes slowly through his nose. He’s still hard, but now he feels rather calm, as Hannibal continues to stroke him. “You wanted me to want this,” he says softly. Hannibal’s lip quirks. Will understands him. He does. “Maybe not this exactly. But you wanted me to ask you. And I have. You suspected your fervor would kindle my own. It did. You’ll only ask for something so that I’ll ask you for what you really want.” Will smiles. He accepts. “This is your design. My surrender.”

Hannibal inclines his head. “And you oblige?”

“God, Hannibal, just make me come,” Will cries, throwing his head back.

And it’s there. In the baring of his throat.

His surrender.

 

“Y-you’ve done that before,” Will says, sighing drowsily after he’s come. Will’s hands are in Hannibal’s hair.

Hannibal is still on his knees. His lips are slightly swollen. “I have done many things,” he replies. His eyes are still very dark. He swallowed all of Will’s come.

Will blinks. “Yes.” There is silence for a moment. Then Will says, “I’ve never done anything.”

“Come to bed with me now.”

“All right.”

Hannibal’s room is just as opulent as the rest of the apartment. The walls are gilded, the carpet is a rich champagne, but the sheets are blood red. Will undresses automatically, and pauses only for a moment when he realizes Hannibal isn’t doing the same.

He feels no discomfort at being naked while Hannibal is fully clothed. He stands at the side of the bed, expecting nothing in particular. Hannibal stands at the foot of the bed and stays silent.

Will breaks it. “I know you have a taste for the finer things, but,” he smiles. “Isn’t all this a bit much?”

“What makes you say that?”

Will shrugs, “I just see you in more of a earthy palette.”

“Like a forest?”

Will frowns. “Maybe.”

Hannibal removes his jacket. Will wonders if it’s a reward of some kind. The more Will reveals of his unconscious, the more Hannibal will expose of himself.

Will isn’t sure he likes this game. “So, did you want to fuck?”

Hannibal smiles and something warm licks, like a flash of flame, through Will’s belly.

“Is that what you want?”

Will is hard again. He thinks that should be answer enough.

“Are you at all wondering if we engaged in sexual activities prior to… our disagreement?” Hannibal asks suddenly.

“Does it matter?” Will replies.

Hannibal removes his tie. It slides and falls away from his neck smoothly. Will watches, a hunger for something rising in him. He’s not quite sure--

“What do you want, Will?” Hannibal can see it. He knows and Will still hasn’t figured it out.

Will licks his lips. Hannibal holds the tie looped over his right thumb and laid over the knuckles of his right hand. It is silver, burnished a sort of iron gray on one edge, and woven in an iridescent herringbone pattern. It’s very fine. It’s beautiful.

“I want that,” he says.

Hannibal moves. He rounds the corner of the bed and extends his arms to hand Will the tie. Will takes it with a similar amount of ceremony. His fingers shake minutely. He smooths the pads of his fingers across the silk.

“It would please me, if you tied it over your eyes,” Hannibal says softly.

Will doesn’t hesitate.

The silk is cool across his face, secure after he knots it at the back of his head. Hannibal is close to him now. His hands touch Will’s shoulders. They guide him down to the bed, first to sit, then to lie.

“Are you comfortable?” Hannibal brushes a few stray hairs away from the bridge of Will’s nose. Will shivers. Promptly, a blanket is draped over him. It’s a crushed velvety material, soft, and not too heavy.

Will takes it gratefully. “Yes.” There is a question at the end of the word.

“I would like to engage you in guided meditation, Will,” Hannibal says as a weight settles on the edge of the bed beside him. His voice is very low, very smooth. Will relaxes. “This is how we will discover the entrance to your mind palace.”

“If I have one,” Will interjects. His mind automatically pictures Hannibal there in the room, sitting so close to him. But his face is again wreathed in darkness. His intentions are unclear. Will thought he didn’t care, but now he’s not so sure. His hands itch to pull the tie from his eyes, but he grips the blanket instead. He’d asked for it.

“Yes,” Hannibal affirms. “You shared your dream with me, Will. And I thank you for that. I believe if you share more of this beast and the places he travels in your mind, we can navigate your subconscious. We can free your memories from obscurity. You have been to your house, yes?”

Hannibal’s words were so soft, so measured, and Will had been concentrating on them so fully, so easily, he answers the question without thinking, “Yes. But it felt so strange to be there.”

He wants to ask why this feels so natural. He doesn’t have time to buoy himself on a spike of panic before Hannibal speaks again. “I want you to picture your house. Lit up at night. From the inside, shining out.”

Will does this. He imagines he is standing at the end of the driveway, looking up and seeing it floating in a dark ocean, a shining beacon. But something feels wrong. And he’s not sure. He wants to speak again, but Hannibal goes on, “It does not feel like a stranger’s house, Will. It is yours. You remember turning all the lights on before you left. And now you are returning. It is as natural to be here as it is for you to listen to the sound of my voice.”

Will looks at his house in his mind. He’s coming back from a walk with Winston. He smiles. “It’s home.”

“Yes. Now,” Hannibal breathes. “Go inside.”

Will starts up the driveway and with every step he feels more and more sure of himself. What he’s doing feels right. He wants to go home.

“Tell me what you are seeing, Will.” Hannibal’s voice can’t be ignored. Will wouldn’t ignore it even if he could. Hannibal is helping him. Hannibal showed him the way home. He wants to tell Hannibal that he’s so grateful.

“I’m very glad, Will. Have you already entered?”

Will goes through the front door. The house is warm, but the dogs aren’t here. Will is worried as he looks around for them. He was only out with Winston--had he left Winston by the road?

Hannibal’s voice calms him. “The dogs are safe and cared for, Will. But the lights have turned off, haven’t they?”

Yes, it’s dark now. Will can’t see anything. He closes the door behind him. His vision expands to take in the darkness, searching for even a little light, but there is none. There’s nothing here.

“We will find it, my dear,” Hannibal says. “This is your house, but the interior has transformed. In the darkness you see a square room. On each of the four walls there is a door. Describe the doors to me.”

Will sees the doors. The one in front of him is of wood, wreathed in branches and leaves, crowned in a tangle of weathered antlers. The one to his right is made of porcelain. Shards of it. Curved pieces, razor sharp, slick with blood, as though cups full of the stuff have been shattered. Will frowns at it, tilting his head. He wants to step closer--

“Leave it for now,” Hannibal says. “The other two doors, if you please?”

Will turns to his left. He sees a plain white door, one that might lead to a doctor's office of some kind. It looks clinical, but of high quality. The handle is plain, round, and polished silver. At his back is his own front door.

“Very good, Will. When we are finished, it is through this door that you will walk to return to me and to yourself. Do you understand?”

Will does. But he doesn’t know which of the other three doors to take.

“What are your feelings about the doors?”

Will looks at each of them. He was curious before about the porcelain one to his right, but the more he looks at it, the more ominous it seems. He watches the blood drip from the door knob, which looks just as sharp as the rest. He thinks turning it would slice him open.

He turns to the wooden door then, and he thinks of the beast--the stag in his dreams. He’s never feared it before, but something about this place seems so immediate, so near. He doesn’t think he wants to face it.

Suddenly he hears a great knocking from the other side of the wooden door, as though something is trying to break it down. Will jumps, pressing his back against the front door of his house. His hand moves to the door knob. He can leave here. He can.

“Yes, my dear. You certainly can,” Hannibal tells him. “But wait just a moment, please. What about the last one? Will you tell me about the white door?”

Will doesn’t think. He doesn’t like the pounding. So he goes through the white door.

“This is your office,” Will says to Hannibal. It’s the room from his dream. All earthy greens and deep reds, dark wood and beautiful furniture with clean, modern lines. Will doesn’t recall walking far into the room, but he’s standing to the right of Hannibal’s desk and to the left of one of the office chairs. He looks down at it and knows it’s comfortable. He’s sat in it before. Often.

“Of course it is,” Hannibal replies. Will doesn’t catch his lips forming the words, but they move in the way that Will’s seen them do when he’s amused. It’s not exactly a smile, but his eyes are bright. He seems pleased to see Will.

“I’d forgotten,” Will reminds him.

Hannibal doesn’t seem surprised to hear that, or perturbed. But he doesn’t react as though he knew either.

“Are you a memory?” Will asks.

“How are you feeling?” Hannibal asks, as though Will hadn’t spoken. And before Will can respond, but as though he had anyway, Hannibal says, “I’d like you to draw a clock for me.”

Will is momentarily confused but he draws the clock, quickly and without much care, when Hannibal hands him a pad of paper. He looks down at it and frowns as his vision wavers. In one moment the clock is even, if messily constructed. In the next it is hopelessly crooked, tilting off to the right as if it had melted in the sun.

"Oh," he says, looking up at Hannibal's calm face. "It's the encephalitis."

Suddenly, he feels warm. Very warm. And so tired.

He feels a bone deep exhaustion that far surpasses what he felt recovering from a stab wound. Will feels the old ache in his shoulder and he waits for the newer pang from his belly, but it doesn't come and he wonders for a moment if that wound was the dream, the hallucination--is he going crazy?

He blinks and feels a cool hand on his cheek. Hannibal is standing before him. Will can feel him, his strong form, almost holding Will up. Will’s eyes are closed. They are near the bookshelves now. Will feels safe. Cared for. Hannibal is checking his temperature.

Then, he is sitting in the chair once again. A drawing of a clock in his lap.

"Whatever it is, Will," Hannibal says. "I'm going to help you."

"But you know what it is," Will replies. He hands the pad back to Hannibal, who is leaning against his desk. "You saw this. You should know already."

Will is no longer sure how he knows this. He can't think. His head aches.

Hannibal looks down at the pad, his face unreadable, and he doesn't respond. Once more as though Will hadn't spoken. Will watches him looking at the paper. He watches Hannibal set it aside, fold his hands, and change the subject.

Will can't understand what he's saying now. All he can do is blink, and shiver, and say, "You just wanted to see what would happen."

The lights flicker and Will's vision flashes in a too bright fluorescent haze. He thinks for a moment there are bars around him. He's sitting in an iron cage. He panics, twisting around to search for the door--the office door, but he can't see it.

"Deep breaths, Will," Hannibal says, and Will spins around again and he's in the office. Hannibal's lips are moving, but Will can't hear him. He grabs at the chair beside him, but nearly falls because it's not there anymore. The lights are flickering. He thinks he moans. 

"Will, calm yourself."

Hannibal's voice comes from everywhere. It's low and soothing, but the Hannibal before him isn't speaking anymore. He's drawing something at his desk, his head tilted just to the side, his eyes dark with concentration.

Will's not really here.

"No, you are not," Hannibal croons. "We are breaking into your mind palace. You are safe and unharmed."

Will feels so hot. He doesn't understand why he feels so hot.

"You are remembering your illness. Your mind is re-experiencing the fever. But you are not ill. You are not mad. You are safe with me."

Will thinks of the flight to Italy.

“Yes. Far away from your illness and from your injury.”

He thinks of Hannibal’s palatial apartments. The champagne colored carpets.

“Yes, Will. Among all my beautiful things. You are the most precious.”

Will thinks of the clock he’d drawn.

“There is so much more to this story than a crooked clock, my dear. Do you believe me?”

Will thinks that he does.

“Then come back through the doors.”

Will turns again and the white door is a step away. He goes through and hears the pounding from the wooden door. It’s so loud now the porcelain door rattles with it. Will stops and watches, trying to steady his breathing.

“You are tired, Will. Come back through. There will be time.”

Will sways suddenly with the weight of his exhaustion. He no longer feels feverish, but all he wants is to sleep. He wraps his hand around the doorknob on his own front door, turns it with a practiced, routine motion, and steps through.

He opens his eyes to darkness and sucks a shocked breath into his lungs. Strong hands steady him and Hannibal says quietly, “Remember the blindfold.”

“Oh,” Will breathes. He moves to take it off, but pauses, then lets his hand drop. Will’s legs have curled under his body, allowing Hannibal to sit much closer to him than before. The blanket still covers the lower half of his body, and Hannibal’s hands, once cool, warm his exposed flesh.

When before Will’s mind envisioned the room around him, now he imagines nothing. It feels like a relief. He drops his head to Hannibal’s shoulder.

“Tell me why you didn’t remove it,” Hannibal says

Will sighs, unwilling to examine his feelings too closely. He speaks the truth when he says, “You said it would please you if I wore it. I didn’t take it off because I didn’t want to… to run the risk of… not pleasing you.” He hears these words, haltingly spoken, replays them in his mind, and feels very afraid.

“Thank you, Will,” Hannibal replies.

“You knew,” Will whispers. Hannibal takes his hand.

“Yes. You were right. I wanted to see what would happen.”

“You were exerting control over me. You’re still doing that.” Will lets him hold on. Allows the slow circling of Hannibal’s thumb across the tendons and knuckles and tender flesh of his hand. “Why should I care what pleases you? You shouldn’t be anyone to me now.”

“I shouldn’t be,” Hannibal says quietly. “Perhaps that would be better. But I think, my dear, that I am now the only one.”

Will jerks back and rips the tie from his face. He blinks, even in the dim light of the expansive bedroom, but he doesn’t let it stop him from glaring at Hannibal.

“Why the change of heart?” Hannibal asks, unperturbed, it seems.

“I wanted to make sure I saw you preening,” Will replies. 

Hannibal’s expression doesn’t change, but he leans forward and presses his lips to Will’s temple. The gesture feels incongruent to the conversation and the sensation is strange, but not unwelcome. Will closes his eyes to it and reminds himself that Hannibal’s goal is to pull him closer, to ensure that even if Will understands what is happening, he won’t want it to stop.

Will doesn’t. Not yet. He’s actually hoping he never will.

Because he has no idea how he’ll escape, should he want to.

“You should sleep now,” Hannibal tells him.

Will can’t see a reason to say no. He thinks this grudging capitulation will be par for the course for the foreseeable future, until he won’t even bother to try and think of alternatives to Hannibal’s requests. He won’t need to understand the machinations behind Hannibal’s desires. It will be routine. It will be safe, until it isn’t, and then he’ll probably die.

“Why don’t you just kill me now?” Will asks.

Hannibal huffs a breath, as though Will’s said something funny, and kisses him again in the same place. He says nothing else and trails his open palm across Will’s stomach as he rises from the bed. Will watches him retreat to the door. He curls into Hannibal’s sheets and closes his eyes.

 

Will is woken by voices in the room. Hannibal’s and Bedelia’s. He doesn’t shift. He listens.

“--apologies.” Bedelia’s voice is hushed.

Hannibal’s is barely lowered, “Nonsense.” Will has a hunch Hannibal knows he is awake. “I consider it perfectly natural for you to be curious about Will’s presence in my bed and concerned both for him and how his relationship with me will impact you.”

There is a long pause and then Bedelia says, “May I ask why he’s naked, yet you show no sign of having had intercourse?”

“He assumed it was what I wanted. His clothes were off by the time he realized it wasn’t.”

“You don’t want to sleep with him?”

“I didn’t this evening.”

“What did you want?”

Hannibal doesn’t answer, as if the boldness of the question is beneath her.

“I suppose I can always ask Will when he is awake,” she ruminates. 

It’s a strangely charged pause that follows, before Hannibal replies, “Of course, you may. I cannot guarantee an answer, however.” Will almost smiles at the way she’s ruffled his feathers.

“You will almost certainly ask him not to tell me.”

“Well, I cannot say if he will listen--

She laughs at him. It’s a brittle, humorless thing and it’s cut quickly short by some action Will can’t perceive. There is no sound that Hannibal makes, and the only ensuing result is the cessation of noise. Will wants to stir, but he fears what he will see if he raises his head. 

He doesn’t want to be compelled to protect her. He finds himself wishing she wasn’t here. He’s already worried about what will become of her. He finds the idea of his inevitable guilt over her fate distasteful and he finds himself wondering if that’s his own feeling, or something he’s already unconsciously picked up from Hannibal.

Hannibal, who he’s led through his subconscious, to whose design he seems more than willing to submit.

Hannibal’s hand comes to rest on his back. “She’s retired,” he says.

Will looks up at him.

Hannibal’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. Strands of his hair have fallen across his eyes. “Bedelia is on a knife’s edge,” he says. “Your coming has changed things for her. Thrown whatever plans she'd made into turmoil.”

Will keeps his eyes steady on Hannibal’s.

“You will tell me what she says to you.”

“No,” Will answers, “I will tell you if what she says will put us in danger.”

Hannibal removes his hand and Will tenses his jaw. He’s not so far under Hannibal’s spell that he won’t push back. “I’d like to retain at least some of my faculties, Dr. Lecter,” Will grinds out. “You don’t want a mindless slave any more than I want to be one.”

Something in Hannibal eases and Will immediately feels an overwhelming sense of relief.

Then Hannibal murmurs, “Very good,” and the bottom drops out of Will’s stomach, even as his dick stiffens under the blankets. He smiles and asks, “Are you hungry, Will?”


	4. Chapter 4

Will eats whatever is put in front of him.

He thinks it would be rude to do anything else. All of it tastes wonderful, but he can't quite bring himself to offer up any compliments when he knows the source of the meal is particularly sinister. He notices Bedelia does the same.

Hannibal leaves them alone together when he goes to work. About a week into Will’s stay, Bedelia asks him if he would like to go shopping with her.

It’s pretty much a disaster. Days have passed since Will’s left Hannibal’s apartment, most of which he’d spent walking the rooms of his mind with Hannibal. Out in the world, he feels unmoored, unbalanced. Everything seems strange and foreign to him now and Bedelia has to take his hand in the square and draw him into an alley where he can catch his breath.

There, she touches his face lightly with an open palm, mimicking one of Hannibal’s favorite gestures, and Will’s eyes track to hers.

“He is making you reliant on him,” she says softly. “He aims to break you then build you up again in a form of his choosing. Then you will never leave him.”

Will nods. He knows.

Her lips press together, but she only says, “Would you like to continue on to the shop?”

He nods again.

“Then you will have to rely on me as well.”

He clings to her hand the rest of the way there. He keeps his eyes on the cobblestones and she leads him.

On the way back, she stops at a train station and they sit together on a public bench. At first, Will believes the stop is for his benefit, but he finally raises his eyes to see her staring at a fixed point in the air to her right. Will looks too and realizes what she’s doing.

“You do this everyday?” he asks quietly, eyeing the CCTV camera.

“I believe Hannibal knows,” she answers. “Yet he still encourages my daily routines. This morning, it was he who suggested I invite you.”

“He either wants me to confirm his suspicions or he wants my image captured as well,” Will says.

Bedelia stands and Will follows her to his feet. “Either is just as likely as both,” she tells him.

Will nods again and his eyes fall to the ground. He wants to go back now, badly. He wants to go back inside his house, Hannibal’s office, even the other two locked doors seem more welcoming than this loud, unfamiliar, outside.

He reaches for Bedelia’s hand, but she pulls it away and turns to him. He can’t meet her eyes, but he sees her lips thin again. “When they find us,” she speaks slowly. “That is when he will force the break.”

Will does meet her eyes now. “Trial by fire,” he murmurs.

“He will have you prove yourself,” she says. “If you let me, I can help you preserve your choice in the matter.”

He frowns, confused. “How could you do that?”

She doesn’t answer until they return to the apartment. There, she shows him an online article from an Italian newspaper, translated into English. At the top is a picture of a man. He’s young, thirty-ish maybe, and smiling. He’s got a rakish beard and a wicked look in his eyes. The photo itself is a social one taken at a bar or a party of some kind. Others have clearly been cut out of it. There’s a bare woman’s arm draped across his shoulder.

“This is Anthony Dimmond,” Bedelia says. “He was a guest of Dr. Fell and his wife shortly before you came here.” She hits an arrow key to scroll down the article. Will reads the headline, “English Academic’s Body Found Mutilated in Palermo.” Will’s eyes let the text breeze past until they settle on the next photo.

“I see Bedelia has decided to show you my valentine, Will,” Hannibal says from the door.

Will stares at it, the contorted limbs, fashioned into an anatomical heart, propped above the mosaic of a smiling skull. They’ve been in that memory already--the chapel in Palermo, the charcoal sketch, the roaring fire, and Hannibal telling him where to go. This is what he was meant to see. He looks at it and he understands everything Hannibal wanted to show him, the Will who would have known what it meant. But also the Will who would have hated it, shrank from it, and lashed out because of it.

Will turns from the screen, turns searching for Hannibal’s face. And he smiles. It’s a soft smile, maybe even a little wan, but it’s there.

Hannibal is clearly pleased. Bedelia closes the laptop.

“Come, Will,” Hannibal says. Will rises and follows him into the bedroom.

Hannibal doesn’t ask him to, but Will begins to remove his clothes anyway. Sometimes they do this clothed, sometimes Will is naked. Right now, he wants to be exposed. Sometimes Hannibal will touch him. He thinks he wants that too. He wants comfort.

He thinks of the “valentine.” He shivers.

“Bedelia is giving you an escape route,” Hannibal’s voice is soft in the quiet of the dark room. Will is standing, but he’s already sat on the bed.

Will looks up, guilt in his expression.

But Hannibal smiles at him. It’s a strange look for him and Will stares. “This route is only an escape from blame. Do you think I want Jack Crawford to believe you are here of your own volition?”

“Am I?” Will asks. He really doesn’t know anymore. He’s beginning to suspect Hannibal is doing something to his memories, hiding details, directing Will’s attention. He doesn’t think he can do this on his own, but he feels Hannibal shaping him.

Hannibal doesn’t answer. “If they take me, Will, it will be very important to me that you not share my fate.”

“How will Anthony Dimmond help me do that?” Will asks.

“Bedelia will tell you when the time is right.”

Will wonders when he became this person that things just happened to. He doesn’t even feel as though the decision to come to Italy was his own. He realizes his gaze has fallen to his feet. He’s removed all his clothes while they were speaking. 

He looks up again at Hannibal and says, “I want to go through the porcelain door.”

Hannibal looks pleased, his smile a shadow on his face. “Very well.”

Will climbs onto the bed, but instead of tucking himself in, as he’s come to think of it, he crawls into Hannibal’s lap and presses his face to his thigh.

“I want to start in the stream,” he says.

“As you like,” Hannibal replies. He draws his fingers through Will’s hair.

Will closes his eyes.

 

The stream rushes around his waders. It’s light outside, though the sky is nearing dusk. It’s a muted light and the sounds of the rushing water seem muted as well. 

Winston barks to him from the bank.

Will wants to be here because he remembered what he’d said to Hannibal when they spoke of mind palaces in his office. 

_All I need is a stream._

He thinks, if he stands here, rod in hand, Winston watching, he can catch the memories as they flow past him.

He should be able to.

He should--if he were still the Will Graham who had that conversation with Hannibal. If he wasn’t an empty shell of a person. If he had one complete memory of catching a goddamn fish, of feeling the satisfaction of it, of feeling anything but the cold rushing past him--over him, no--

“Shall we return to the house?” Hannibal asks.

Will wants to cry.

“Transformation is always painful, my dear. But we endeavor to be strong in the face of it.”

Will wants him to shut up. He can--

\--the water rises so suddenly, so unexpectedly, Will cries out. There’s a gaping wound in his gut and the water is rushing from it.

He’s on the ground.

There’s someone beside him. She’s bleeding out. Her blood is the stream too.

_I wanted to surprise you._

Hannibal’s voice.

“This is not the way, Will. This will not help you understand.”

But he feels it now. He feels the hurt. The betrayal. The sheer horror. And he knows who caused it.

This isn’t Hannibal’s transformation. It’s his. And he wants to feel it. He wants it this way.

_Time did reverse._

You were supposed to leave.

_I wanted to surprise you. And you. You wanted to surprise me._

Will sits before Jack in his office. He sits before Hannibal in his office.

_Will you do what needs to be done?_

Yes. Yes.

He will--he would have. He did what he could for both of them. He called. It was the only way he could keep them both safe. He hadn’t realized--hadn’t known until it was almost too late--how it would feel to lie like that to Hannibal. 

He didn’t understand until it was too late how personal, how vital--

“The chrysalis is a cage, Will. The bars are what you think of as morality, decency. You were not equipped with a key. But I forged you one and still you did not use it.”

_I gave you a rare gift._

Will’s hands are in his gut, across the throat of a young girl.

Abigail.

_No. No. No._

He sees her on a different floor. Her father--he knows it’s her father and that he's killed him--dead in the corner.

She's bleeding out.

"Will, remember you are not there--"

But he's drowning in it. There is no door.

"It's there. You must find it."

He tries to hold all the blood in, but it's rushing him.

He looks across the floor and sees the stag. It bellows in pain. It writhes. It stands, blood soaked and is now a man. Will blinks and it’s Hannibal. There’s a knife in his hand, a curved little blade. Will is on the floor, the water still rushing, or is that the sound of a storm outside?

_Time did reverse._

_Did you believe you could change me the way I changed you?_

Will did. He did.

_We couldn’t leave without you._

In what strange world would Hannibal wait? He waited for Will. All this--for Will. And more.

_Abigail come to me._

No. No, don’t.

_I forgive you. Will you forgive me? Will you? Will._

_When the teacup shatters._

Will can’t speak and she calmly walks into his arms. She barely makes a sounds when he cuts her. Not like Will--

\--Will is there now, in Hannibal’s arms. His hands are strong. He smells like blood, like fire, like _life_. The life Will realizes they could have had.

_We couldn’t leave without you._

_You didn’t want it._

Didn’t Will? Didn’t Will want it? He tried to fix it. He’d made the call.

_We couldn’t leave without you._

He could have come later.

“Would you have?”

He fucking _did_. He came anyway. In spite of everything, everything he’s lost.

“Will, please look for the door.”

He isn’t done yet. Not nearly. He feels his blood pulsing in his veins, leaving him through his bowels until he feels Hannibal’s arms around him.

_Time did reverse._

The knife is in him, then outside him.

_When the teacup shatters._

Hannibal’s hand across his neck. He breathes. Abigail. Abigail is in the room and Will doesn’t understand, can barely process--

_I wanted to surprise you._

_You wanted to surprise me._

They surprised each other.

Will walks into Hannibal's kitchen. He walks through the door. Not backwards, but looping over and over and over. Will leaves Alana on the ground, breathing her shattered bones. He reaches for the doorknob. It's made of jagged porcelain. 

_You were supposed to leave._

_Surprise me._

They surprised themselves. Will never expected to _want_ to go. He never expected to want what he wants now. Now he knows.

His eyes fly open. He jackknifes up from the mattress, sheets flying. But Hannibal's hand keeps him seated, heaving breaths, on the bed. He's covered in sweat and anguished tears.

Hannibal watches him carefully.

"What?" he says hoarsely, still catching his breath.

"Despite your description of having turned the knob, I was not sure you'd safely emerged from your mind, Will. This is the third time you have opened your eyes since we began." Hannibal, upon further inspection, looks frighteningly disheveled. His hair is pushed back from his face and his shirt and pants are rumpled. At Will's look, he adds, "It was necessary for me to restrain you. You were tearing at your scar."

Will looks down at his belly and sees red, angry scratches all across the raised flesh where Hannibal had drawn his knife. He flinches as his fingers touch it. The wound still feels new, like it happened minutes ago. He whimpers.

"Leave it." Hannibal catches Will's fingers in his own, pulling them away. "Breathe, Will."

Will nods, closing his eyes. In the darkness, he sees Abigail. He remembers her.

“I forgive you,” Will says. He looks at Hannibal, who steadily meets his eyes, betraying no emotion. “I forgave you when I didn’t know it was you I wanted to forgive. I felt what I thought was just emptiness, but it was--" 

Will shakes his head. "I told the stag in my dreams. I told the walls in the hospital. When I didn’t know what there was to forgive. I forgive you.”

“Hush, my dear,” Hannibal says. "I know that."

Will kisses him.

Hannibal has kissed Will before. Possessive gestures of fondness at his temple, against his knuckles, down his stomach that very first evening. But Will has never kissed Hannibal before. 

It’s a revelation.

Hannibal is warm against Will’s sweat-cooled skin. He responds with a fire equal to Will’s own, though decidedly less desperate. Will’s hands shake has he raises them to cradle Hannibal’s face and neck. He climbs into Hannibal’s lap as their lips suck and nibble, as their teeth knock and tongues collide. Hannibal grabs Will’s ass and pulls them flush against each other. Close, so close. Will moans.

Hannibal lets Will push him down onto the bed, clumsily plucking at the buttons of his wrinkled shirt. Will can feel Hannibal’s eyes on him as he struggles. He makes no move to help. He wouldn’t, Will thinks wryly. 

Will growls and rips the garment open, exposing Hannibal’s sparsely haired chest. He presses his lips to one nipple and then the other. Hannibal’s body and breath react, a sudden stillness, a hitching sound. He doesn’t speak.

Will feels a challenge rise between them. “I don’t see why you’re trying so hard to project indifference,” he says. His voice doesn’t sound like his own. It’s hoarse still and low.

“Not indifference,” Hannibal replies, his own voice even, despite the increased rhythm of his breathing. Will can feel his heart pumping fast. “Restraint.”

Will rears up. He settles himself across Hannibal’s erection, marvelling at his own confidence. He doesn’t know what he was or is like in bed, but he didn’t think he’d be this way. “You don’t think I want a little pain?” He asks arching a brow as he looks down at Hannibal. 

“I don’t think you want me to tear you apart, my dear,” he answers sweetly. He reaches up, almost lazily, to draw a single finger from Will’s collarbone, down to his navel, just above the scar.

Will smiles, catching Hannibal’s wandering hand and kissing his palm, then his knuckles, open-mouthed and wet. “Haven’t you done that already? I thought you’d be bored of it by now.”

He starts to move.

He grinds their cocks together, his naked, Hannibal’s clothed by two thin layers of fine fabric. Hannibal groans and arches as Will rolls his hips. Will leans down, bracing himself by his arms on either side of Hannibal’s head, just above his exposed shoulders. He keeps moving, slowly, teasingly. He says, “What new torment do you have in store, Dr. Lecter?”

Hannibal’s eyes flash wide as he surges forward, toppling Will onto his back. Hannibal sinks between Will’s spread legs, dragging their cocks together with a filthy look in his eye. He gets his knees underneath him and pulls Will close, into a searing kiss with one hand as he uses the other to unbuckle his belt and fly.

“Do you still dream of being penetrated?” he asks Will. His voice is husky, his breath hot against Will’s neck. Hannibal inhales deeply.

Will doesn’t dream anymore, now that he walks through the rooms of his mind at night with Hannibal. “I haven’t seen it since you brought me here,” Will replies. The stag has stayed locked behind the wooden door. The palace Will and Hannibal are exploring has caged it.

Hannibal’s eyes look very dark. There is a hunger in them. The pressure, the heat, of Will’s erection is bordering on painful. “Do you feel you are any closer to understanding the nature of this beast?”

Will shakes his head slowly. His lips part and he gasps as Hannibal presses his now exposed cock against Will’s puckered hole. “Do it,” he groans.

“If I do it now, you will bleed,” Hannibal says, teeth flashing in a feral grin.

Will bears down and Hannibal makes a pleased noise, but he pulls away, so swiftly Will doesn’t understand what he wants until his tongue is lapping at Will’s hole, his face pressed between Will’s legs. Will cries out and grasps at the ornate headboard above him.

Hannibal opens him up with his tongue. And then with one finger and then two, until he’s hitting just the right spot and Will is begging for it, shamelessly. After what seems like an eternity, with little ceremony and even less warning, Hannibal pierces him. Will screams.

“This is not a wound, my dear,” Hannibal says. His voice is shaking from exertion as he thrusts. His breath is as labored as Will’s.

Will moans and comes all over his stomach. Hannibal’s nostrils flare at the smell of him, tils his head back and follows suit.

Once Hannibal pulls out, takes his leave with a kiss to Will’s forehead and a few words about cleaning up, Will begins to tremble. It’s inexplicable and it only becomes more violent when Hannibal returns.

Will stares at him as he stops short at the edge of the bed. He can’t catch his breath. “What--” he tries to ask.

“It seems your body’s flight response is not quite as abnormal as your brain’s, my dear,” Hannibal says softly. “Of course, I cherish all your fascinating quirks.”

Will tries to laugh and only ends up gasping for air.

Hannibal’s fond smile disappears in an instant just as Will’s vision begins to go gray around the edges. He fades into the shadows around the edge of the room and Will suddenly becomes actually afraid. It feels like a long time since fear sent a spike through his chest. Now he gasps with it, reaching out blindly as he begins to lose consciousness.

He hears Hannibal’s voice, but he can’t understand what he’s saying. He feels a small prick in his arm.

He sleeps like the dead.


	5. Chapter 5

When Will wakes, he feels strangely groggy. It's the afternoon, he thinks, by the way the sun fills the room. He couldn't have slept for fifteen or sixteen hours straight, could he? Something feels wrong. 

He grabs his pants from where someone has laid them over a chair. Slips a t-shirt over his head as well. When he leaves the bedroom, he sees Bedelia and Hannibal are talking in low voices near the window of the parlor.

Hannibal has taken a beating, it seems. His face is cut. He looks tired.

Will frowns. His head is aching. "Did you… drug me?" He croaks.

Hannibal looks at him. "You had a very difficult session. And I needed to be away."

Will doesn't think that justifies it at all. 

The expression on his face must make that clear because Hannibal says, slightly miffed, "It was only after you were asleep."

"Was it before or after someone cut your face up like that?" Will asks after a tense moment.

Hannibal now looks perplexed. "Before--"

"Hannibal, you have to go," Bedelia says, clearly impatient. She looks like she wants to push him out the door, but knows better. “None of this will work if you don’t leave _now_.”

Hannibal stares at her implacably, but she doesn’t back down at all. He moves then, walking the few short steps to insert himself in Will personal space. Will is drawn to him as ever, despite the horror of the night before, but the air between them seems more charged than usual with danger.

Hannibal hands Will a folder he had tucked into the inside of his jacket. Will looks down at it. Pinned to the front cover is a photo of Anthony Dimmond.

“The teacup that shattered, my dear,” Hannibal says softly and kisses him.

Will tastes the coppery tang of Hannibal’s blood. His head swims and he can’t help it. He clings to Hannibal’s arms. Hannibal pulls him closer and speaks low in his ear. “She'll try to stop you from coming. She doesn't want me to have you. You'll come, my dear. I know you, Will. There is no one who knows you better than I do.”

Will jerks back and stares at Hannibal.

“The beginning,” Hannibal says. “The Spring, dear Will. You will not be yourself, but still, I think you will come.”

Will doesn’t answer. Hannibal lets him go and walks out the door.

 

Will looks down at the folder, at Anthony Dimmond. Bedelia is standing next to the side table in front of the window overlooking the city. There is a case of glass vials sitting open on the table and two glass needles.

“You’re going to convince them--Jack, whoever--that Hannibal’s manipulated you into believing you really are Lydia Fell,” Will says.

“Yes,” she replies.

Will flips open the folder. It contains medical records, housing information, a CV, and a small portfolio of slightly pretentious poetry. At the back of the folder, there is a note that reads in Hannibal’s elegant script, _Swallow him whole for me, my dear_. The note is pinned to a newspaper clipping of the valentine.

Bedelia speaks carefully, “Hannibal has told me this will be different for you than it is for me. I will be saying that I am someone else. You will _be_ someone else. Are you comfortable with that?”

“What choice do I have?” 

Will realizes, understands now in a way he hadn’t been able to before last night, what Hannibal has always known--he _can’t_ do what Bedelia will be doing. He couldn’t just pretend to be Hannibal’s protege. He’d become. He’d transformed in a way that was unavoidable.

And he’d have to do it again.

“There is no choice, if you want them to believe you’re a hostage. If you want the subsequent choice we’ve spoken of.”

Will doesn’t answer. He reads through everything in the folder, then flips back to the picture pinned to the front. “He sort of looks like me,” he says absently.

She nods and says, “When I saw him, I knew he wouldn’t get away.”

“It won’t--” He struggles a moment. “It won’t be hard.” He’s just never done it on purpose before. He can’t imagine he has. It’s turning his stomach just thinking about it.

He knows how his empathy works. There was never a matter of teaching himself how to use it or not use it. It’s still a part of him. Ever since they told him he consulted on murder cases, that he was a cop, that he lived alone--virtually everything they told Will about himself--he understood the role his empathy played. He understands now how to do this thing she is asking of him. But it disgusts him.

“The drugs will help,” she says and sticks him.

He cries out and tries to jerk away. “Jesus--now?” He hadn’t realized one of the needles was already filled.

She walks him gently over to the sofa. She sits next to him and strokes his face and smiles at him. It’s fond, loving. He feels a soft warmth rush through him. His muscles relax and she pulls him close. He smiles back at her.

“That’s it,” she murmurs. She’s petting his hair now. It feels good. “Come out, Anthony,” she croons. “Come now.”

He stares at her. His eyes slowly move to the folder in his hand. “Oh,” he murmurs. That’s right. The pendulum swings.

He falls somewhere. He becomes someone else.

“You don’t need that,” she says softly and pulls the folder from his grasp. “Now, you’ve just taken your medicine. You know Dr. Fell prescribes it so we feel better, darling. So we won’t be confused. Do you feel better now?”

He doesn’t know. He thinks he feels strange, but then he thinks that’s probably how he’s supposed to be feeling. And it’s quite good, isn’t it?

She pulls him even closer and he likes that even more. She smiles wickedly now. “Ah,” she lets out a little gasp of epiphany. “I know how to make you feel even better, my darling boy. My Anthony.”

He smiles.

“You must say my name first, darling. Then I’ll make you feel very good.”

His smile falls. There are two names in his mind. He closes his eyes.

“You mustn't think about it so hard, Anthony. Tell me my name.” She kisses his cheek, then his lips.

The medicine is making his thoughts sluggish, but simple. No longer interested in expending much effort, he plucks the last name he’d heard her say. They’d been talking--he can’t quite remember. He says, “Lydia?” and she beams at him.

“Very good.”

He smiles back. He grows bold and touches her. Lydia. She writhes under him. His eyes widen until she surges up, meeting her lips to his. “You always know just how to touch me, Anthony. I’ve never been more happy than I am now. I’m so glad Roman brought you home to us.”

“I didn’t want to leave,” he slurs at her. He remembers now. 

It’s all a haze, but he remembers she said, _It’s not that kind of party_. But then it was. And the party never seemed to stop. 

He likes it though. He likes Lydia. He thinks of Roman--who is tall and strong and who he curls up against at night. In his lap. Hands in his hair.

“You shall stay as long as you like,” she tells him, a pretty pout in her voice.

He likes it here. He does. He feels so good, all the time.

“Tell me my name again,” she commands.

He likes to follow her commands.

“Lydia Fell,” he speaks carefully. She kisses his nose.

“And you are?”

He blinks. 

They must play this game. They must. She’s smiling like it’s a joke, but she’s still enough he thinks she wants an answer. Name, name, name. What had she called him? It seems silly he doesn’t feel sure. 

“You’ll feel better if you say it out loud,” she says. She flicks her eyes down to his lap. “And I’ll give you a present, darling boy.”

“A-anthony,” he says in a rush. And something swings, behind his eyes. He feels it. He blinks. He smiles. “Anthony Dimmond." It rolls off his tongue and he can't remember why he hesitated before.

He’s Anthony. He was born in Kent. He was Roman’s TA at Cambridge. Now he’s Roman’s house boy. He likes that a lot more than teaching. 

"You are such a wonderfully good," she draws out the word in a low, smoldering voice, "boy."

They give each other presents all afternoon.

Later, she makes him help her take the medicine and he rubs the spot where she sticks herself soothingly. He frowns at her pain, but says, "You'll feel better now, too."

She smiles at him wanly. He searches her eyes. Is something the matter?

"You're such an interesting creature," she murmurs patting lightly at his face. The medicine is already taking hold. He can see it in the way she breathes. In the softening of her expression. "He could have done whatever he wanted with you." 

He opens his mouth. He's going to ask what she means.

But then the doorbell rings.

She sighs and gets unsteadily to her feet. "I'm going to answer the door. Go rinse off and come join me in the parlor when you're finished." She smirks to herself, looking off into the distance. “We’ll give him a show.”

Anthony goes.

The shower feels good. He lets his mind wander as the water rushes over him, warming him. It doesn’t travel far however. He thinks about Lydia and how good she is to him. He thinks about Roman, the strange, shadowy presence in his mind.

_She'll try to stop you from coming. She doesn't want me to have you. You'll come, my dear. I know you will._

Will. Will. Will. His mind drums.

He wants to do what Roman says. He’ll go. He will. 

He steps from the shower and dries himself off with certainty. He misses Lydia’s touch. He goes into the bedroom, finds a pair of...Roman’s--yes they’re Roman’s--sleep pants and puts them on. He doesn’t bother with anything else.

He enters the parlor with a small, expectant smile on his face, which falls when he hears an unfamiliar voice. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to pause, listen, or go change, before he’s already in the room.

There is no surprise on the man’s face when he looks at Anthony. “Will,” he says, which is rather strange. Anthony must have missed the last bit of conversation.

Lydia holds her hands out to him. He smiles and goes to her. “Hullo,” he says to the man as he folds himself up next to Lydia on the sofa. The man’s expression sours. He notes Anthony’s undressed state. He meets Anthony’s eyes and narrows his own, disapproving of the drugs, no doubt.

Anthony dislikes him for this. Who is this man to judge them? He spreads his smile wider. He touches Lydia at her hip, down the side of her thigh, feeling tactile. She brushes him off self-consciously, which only makes the gesture that much more obvious.

“This is the houseguest I mentioned,” Lydia tells the man vaguely. “We are the only people in the apartment. My husband is not here.”

Anthony extends his hand. It dips slightly, his balance is off, and he straightens, waiting for the man to reciprocate. “I’m Anthony Dimmond. And you are?”

The man scowls. He doesn’t move. “Not convinced.” 

“Excuse me?” Anthony asks.

The man’s mouth twists. He thrusts a finger in Lydia’s direction. “You, I don’t believe. Not one, iota, Bedelia. And you--” he looks for a moment like he’s about to be sick as he stares into Anthony’s eyes, “I _can’t_ believe it. I won’t.” He turns back to Lydia. “Where is Hannibal?”

“Who?” Anthony asks, incredulous. He also turns to Lydia, who appears to be struggling--she so recently took her medicine. “Darling, who is this? Shall I make him leave for you?”

She smiles and pats his face again. “Such a good boy,” she murmurs.

Anthony closes a hand protectively about her wrist. He turns a baleful glare to the man. “State your business with--with Mrs. Fell or get out.”

Lydia giggles helplessly. “A perfect creature,” she croons waveringly. 

Something has happened to change the man’s demeanor, his mind, because he finally does extend his hand to Anthony and says, “My apologies, Mr. Dimmond. Forgive my rudeness. I’m Jack Crawford. I’m in Italy searching for a man. A serial killer. Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Have you heard that name before?”

Anthony blinks. It sounds--

“We haven’t,” Lydia says without hesitation.

The man--Crawford--sneers at her. “I was asking Mr. Dimmond.”

“I haven’t,” he answers truthfully. He releases his deathly grip on Lydia, but lets his fingers linger along her wrist and forearm. He glances up at Crawford and adds, smiling, “And please, call me Anthony.”

There is now something wary and sad in Crawford’s expression, but he tries for a smile anyway. “Of course.”

Lydia shifts next to him and stretches her beautiful legs across his lap. Anthony gives Crawford a _what are you gonna do_ sort of look and Crawford answers with a shrug, though it seems forced. Anthony tilts his head at the man and asks, “So you believe Roman knows this Dr. Lecter?”

His focus shifts inward as he realizes how familiar the name is on his tongue. There’s something buzzing in the back of his mind.

Will. Will. Will.

Lydia shifts again, her feet curling around his knees. He turns to her. Crawford’s said something, but he didn’t hear it.

\--immond,” a quick pause, “Will? Can you--”

“Anthony, my pet,” Lydia whines. “It’s been so long since your last dose. Are you feeling unwell?”

Anthony closes his eyes and nods. There is a headache forming behind his eyes. “When is Roman coming home?” he asks softly.

She sits up and strokes his face again. “Not for ages, darling. Shall I go and get the medicine for you?”

Anthony shakes his head. “No, I know what to do,” he says, rising. She lifts her legs off him obligingly. He smiles down at her.

“Good boy,” she says.

“Anthony,” Crawford interjects, his voice rising in alarm.

“Not to worry, Jack,” the man’s first name flows surprisingly easily off Will’s tongue. 

He doesn’t turn until Jack says, his voice full of concern, “You’re ill?”

Anthony frowns, meeting Jack’s eyes. Something’s still buzzing in his head. “I get… confused. Like Lydia.”

Jack frowns. “I don’t think quite like Lydia.” He clearly disapproves of something. But Anthony is suddenly uncertain that it’s the drugs in particular. He seems angry with her for some reason.

He hesitates and walks no further towards the other room. “I need--” 

Lydia sits up straight. Her eyes bore into his. “You need your medicine.”

He frowns at her.

_She doesn't want me to have you._

He pitches slowly to the side.

“Will,” Jack cries, up and out of his chair in a moment. 

_She’ll try to stop you from coming._

How can he go to where Roman is if he’s so high he can’t think? He’ll want to do what Lydia says, what this Crawford bloke wants, they’ll keep him here and he won’t--

Jack’s hand is grabbing at his arm, supporting most of his weight. Anthony holds on for dear life.

“I want to leave,” Anthony tells him. “I haven’t--I want to leave now.”

“All right,” Jack says calmly. “Do you want to take anything with you?”

Anthony stares into his face. He knows this man somehow. “What’s--” he can’t finish the question. “I don’t--”

“Get your coat,” Jack tells him, steering him towards the door. Lydia stands unsteadily. Anthony almost stumbles. “Do you know where it is?”

“It’s by the door,” Lydia says slowly. Anthony looks at her. She inclines her head to him and says, “Hi expert conditioning have made your precious decision for you. You are barely yourself and still you yearn for the cage he has built for you.”

Anthony shakes his head. “You’re--He said you didn’t want him to have me.”

She blinks slowly. High as hell still. She licks her lips before she says, “I don’t. And if you were in your right mind, you wouldn’t want it either.”

Anthony only puts one arm in his coat as he stumbles towards the door. Jack is at his heels. “Wait. W--Dimmond, where are you going?”

_The Spring_ he remembers. He pushes through the door and is out and into the elevator. He closes the sliding grate in Jack’s face. 

“Will,” Jack shouts. He pulls at the bars, jerking them uselessly. “Will, please don’t do this.”

He smiles as he pushes the button. “I’m not doing anything,” he says, laughing hollowly. Someone else is speaking from his mouth, or his mouth is speaking another’s words. 

_You'll come, my dear. I know you will._

He’s suddenly dizzy, so he slides to the floor of the elevator. He thrusts shaking hands into his coat pocket and pulls out a brochure. It's for the Uffizi. On it, someone has written in a beautiful scripted hand, _Botticelli_.

He has to ask for directions in clipped, stumbling Italian. “Susci?” he mumbles, pointing to the brochure. "Dove?" He asks three different people and each point him closer. The last, an old woman, puts her hand in the crook of his elbow and walks with him to the entrance.

She pats his arm. “Povero ragazzo,” she says. “Ami d’arte, si?”

He shakes his head as he thanks her in English and stumbles inside. His head is aching. He doesn’t know where to go. Where is--he can’t quite remember who he’s looking for.

As he enters yet another gallery, his gaze is caught by the giant mural in front of him--eight figures under a grove of fruit trees. Smiling, laughing, dancing. It’s renaissance art, but he can’t recall the artist or the particular subject. He frowns. He should know this. He reaches for the brochure, but he’s dropped it somewhere. He’s--

“Well done,” the man sitting on the bench in front to the painting says to him. 

He blinks, startled, then peers at the man. He knows this face intimately. “I was looking for you,” he says. That’s the only thing he’s certain of.

“If I saw you everyday forever, my dear, I would remember this time,” the man says. “Come, sit with me for a moment.”

He sits. He feels a strange sense of urgency that apparently leaves his companion unaffected. A hand, strong and calming, comes to rest at the back of his neck. 

“Are you really here?” he asks. Nails prick at his skin. “I feel strange,” he admits. “Like I’m dreaming. How long have I been dreaming?”

“This is somewhat of a new beginning for me. For us,” the man answers softly. “I will wake you soon. You must trust me.”

He nods. His eyes follow the curved limbs of the figures in the painting. Botticelli, he remembers. One woman has a branch of roses in her mouth.

“I have seen you in every face, in every leaf on every tree of this masterpiece, my dear,” his man says. Fingers pull through the sweat-slicked hair at the back of his neck and he leans into his lover. The only thing he’s certain of. “Will you keep it with you, as I keep you in it?”

He nods again. There is comfort in listening to his voice, a grounding. “You asked me to do something,” he says. “I don’t think it worked.”

“We will practice,” his lover assures him. “I have no doubt you performed admirably under great duress. It is a wonderful skill, my dear. You only need to practice.”

“I can’t remember my name,” he speaks the words as he realizes. “I thought I was someone else.” He turns to his lover. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Who do you think I am now?” his lover asks.

He shrugs. “I haven’t remembered yet.”

“But you have no doubt that you will?”

He tilts his head, then shakes it slowly, side to side. “No,” he says, “No doubt.”

His lover smiles, plants a kiss at his temple, and says, “That’s very good, my dear.”

“Someone else was looking for you,” he says, that urgency returning, though his memories are hazy. “I don’t think we should stay here.”

“Your instincts are excellent,” his lover says, clearly pleased, but his attention is caught by a museum guard approaching them. The newcomer speaks in rapid Italian, motioning angrily towards the floor. He frowns as his lover responds in the same language respectfully, if a little brusque.

“My dear,” his lover says, touching his face. “Have you come all this way with no shoes?”

He looks down at his feet. They are bare, dirtied, and bloodied. He must have walked just under a mile in the cobblestoned streets. He looks back up at his lover. Excuses tumble from his lips. “She didn’t want you to have me,” he cries. “She wanted to stick me again, so I would do what she said. I only wanted you--I--”

“Hush,” his lover replies soothingly. “You did right. But they want us to leave and so we must go. As you said, my dear. I know a place nearby. We’ll clean you up, all right?”

He nods and is led from the building. His lover, wonderfully considerate, walks slow, pulling gently at their clasped hands. He is silent and watches the ground, looking out for more dangers to his feet, all the while wondering how he hadn’t noticed.

His lover takes him into another grand apartment building, and sits him down in a plush chair in an opulent room. There is a bowl of water and a soft cloth. His feet are washed tenderly.

“Sorry,” he mumbles and is hushed again. He thinks he sleeps for a while. He sighs as his coat his removed. He might hear a soft tut at his thinly clothed body. There is a hand across his brow, strong and soothing.

When he wakes, he says, “Hannibal.”

Hannibal kneels in front of him, a hand rests lightly on his knee. He must have crossed the room quickly. His eyes are bright in the low lamplight that illuminates the large space. “Will,” he says, pleased. “I wondered if you would need a prompt to truly return to me. But I see--”

He makes a low noise in the back of his throat, something like a growl, and tries to sit up.

“My dear,” Hannibal says. He reaches for him, but Will knocks his hands away. Defeated, at least for the moment, Hannibal leans back on his heels and folds his hands in his lap. He waits for Will to speak.

“I’d like you,” Will says slowly, “to stop drugging me.”

Hannibal tilts his head. His expression gives away none of his thoughts.

Will wonders briefly if he’s upset by Will’s rebuff, then tells himself he doesn’t care. His body aches. So does his head. It feels like the encephalitis, minus the debilitating fever. But this terrible feeling, the feeling of coming down and out of such an extended haze, is man-made, Hannibal-made. Then again, he reminds himself, for a long time the encephalitis was Hannibal-enabled.

“It’s your control thing,” he spits. He cradles his aching head in his hands. His movements feel jerky. His body unnervingly unresponsive. “You enjoy seeing me go through this.”

“I enjoy everything about you, Will,” Hannibal answers. 

The simplicity of his statement gives Will pause. Then he says, “Fuck you.”

Hannibal’s lips quirk. He captures Will’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. It’s an unrelenting grip. Will’s gaze is matched with Hannibal’s own. “So rude,” he whispers.

“At least stop doing it without my consent.”

Hannibal huffs. “You seem to forget it was not I who drugged you last.”

Will laughs stiffly and Hannibal shakes his head, somehow amused.

“Don’t,” he starts to say, but he feels again the sudden sharpness of a thin needle stuck in his skin. “Wh--” 

He knows his eyes are wide, shocked and betrayed.

“I’m sorry, Will,” Hannibal croons softly and kisses Will’s cheek as he pulls the needle from the meat of Will’s arm. “I know how much you value clarity. But Jack’s perception of your continued innocence in this venture is far more important to me. Should anything go wrong, dear Will, my greatest desire is that you remain blameless in the eyes of the law and public opinion.”

Will blinks, trying to clear his head as the drug rushes cold in his veins. “But I haven’t done anything,” he says, speaking slowly. 

Hannibal smiles. He bends to kiss Will’s unresponsive lips. “Not yet, my dear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, I may have represented Will's empathetic abilities slightly differently than in canon. I stretched them a bit, despite having so far kept this a canon-divergent AU instead of a full on AU. I do believe however, this is a direction that Will's abilities could have been taken, within the logic of the show.

**Author's Note:**

> Will post ~~a chapter a week (Sunday night or Monday morning EST)~~ Once or twice a week (whenever I feel like it apparently) until I run out of chapters. After that, it will be touch and go. But it will definitely finish the damn thing. 
> 
> Find me also at norgbelulah on tumblr.


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